Northern Mexican Indian, member of any of the aboriginal peoples inhabiting northern Mexico.

Distribution of northern Mexican Indians.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The generally accepted ethnographic definition of northern Mexico includes that portion of the country roughly north of a convex line extending from the Río Grande de Santiago on the Pacific coast to the Río Soto la Marina on the Gulf of Mexico. This southern boundary coincides in a general way with the northern margins of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Northern Mexico is more arid and less favourable for human habitation than central Mexico, and its native Indian peoples have always been fewer in numbers and far simpler in culture than those of Mesoamerica. Today, the native peoples are extinct over all of northeastern Mexico; the only Indians present in that area are a group of Kickapoo who immigrated to Coahuila from the United States in the 19th century. In the west the Sierra Madre Occidental, a region of high plateaus that break off toward the Pacific into a series of rugged barrancas, or gorges, has served as a refuge area for the Indian groups of the northwest, as have the deserts of Sonora. At present only the northwestern states of Baja California, Sonora, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Jalisco, Chihuahua, and Durango have Indian populations.

Although accurate population data is lacking in parts of this region, estimates place the total population that is still Indian in language and culture at approximately 130,000, a tiny minority among the several million non-Indians of northwest Mexico.

Surviving Indian peoples of northern Mexico today fall easily into two divisions. By far the greater number are members of the first type, the ten groups which speak some language of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic stock and are traditionally agriculturists. The second type is now reduced to four groups—the descendants of nomadic bands who resided in Baja California and coastal Sonora and lived by hunting and gathering wild foods. The second type spoke various languages not related to Uto-Aztecan.

Uto-Aztecan peoples of northern Mexico have been divided into three branches—Taracahitian, Piman, and Aztecoidan. The Taracahitian branch consists of the Tarahumara of the southwestern Chihuahua; the Varohío, a small group which borders the Tarahumara on the northwest and are closely related to them; the Yaqui, in the Río Yaqui valley of Sonora and in scattered colonies in towns of that state and in Arizona; and finally the Mayo of southern Sonora and northern Sinaloa. Another Taracahitian group, the once prominent Opata, have lost their own language and no longer maintain a separate identity. The Piman branch consists of three groups: the Pima Bajo of the Sierra Madre border of Sonora–Chihuahua; the Papago of northwest Sonora, identical with a much larger portion of the same tribe in Arizona; and the Tepehuán, one enclave of which is located in southern Chihuahua and another in the sierras of southern Durango and Nayarit. The third branch of Uto-Aztecan is the Aztecoidan family, including the Cora located on the plateau and gorges of the Sierra Madre of Nayarit and the Huichol in similar country of northern Jalisco and Nayarit. A final member of this branch, locally called the Mexicanero, includes speakers of Nahuatl, remnants of central Mexican Indians introduced into the area by the Spaniards. The Mexicanero number only a few hundred and live in the mountains of Nayarit and southern Durango.

The remnants of the Baja California Indians—the Tipai (Diegueño), Akwa’ala (Paipai), and Kiliwa—live in ranch clusters and other tiny settlements in the mountains near the American border. Speaking Yuman languages of Hokan stock, they are little different today from their relatives in American California. A small number of Cocopa in the Colorado Delta in like manner represent a southward extension of Colorado River Yumans from the American Southwest. The remaining Seri are found along the desert coast of north central Sonora. This famous group also speaks a language of Hokan origin and is probably related to now extinct peoples who lived across the gulf in Baja California two hundred years ago.

Missions and isolation helped to preserve the several surviving Indian groups of northwest Mexico through the colonial period (1530–1810), but all underwent considerable alteration under the influence of European patterns. Nearly all the agricultural tribes adopted some form of Roman Catholicism and much Spanish material culture. It was at this time that the traditional cultures of northern Mexico were formed, the basic patterns continuing until the present. Many groups faded away—gradually losing their languages and identities in the emerging mestizo, or mixed-blooded European and Indian population, the predominant people of present-day Mexico. Only the Huichol, Seri, and Tarahumara remained primarily aboriginal cultures, but even these groups adopted many items and ideas from the Spanish invaders.

Today, all these peoples exist as ethnic enclaves surrounded by, and in most cases sharing their lands with, non-Indians and manifesting some of the characteristics of ethnic minorities everywhere. There is competition for lands with mestizo ranchers and, in most groups, a conscious desire for survival as distinct cultural entities.

Traditional culture patterns

Although in some aspects of culture the Indian groups share much with other rural Mexicans, psychologically they tend to be very distinct. The basic orientation of life of the traditional Indian cultures is primarily religious in that they look to the supernatural to solve their problems and tend to see their own lives as requiring continuous service to the deities. This is in strong contrast to the practical and materialistic orientation of other northern Mexicans. The average Uto-Aztecan Indian in this area is reserved toward outsiders, especially non-Indians, and prefers not to be too much in evidence. The ideal person is industrious, carries out his religious obligations, and does not seek change in his traditional lifeways. In contrast, the Seri and Yuman groups, being of another tradition, are less inclined to secrecy and more aggressive toward outsiders.

Social structures

The social structure of the Uto-Aztecan peoples of northwest Mexico are variations of one basic type, while those of the Seri and Baja California remnants follow other forms.

The Uto-Aztecan agriculturalists of modern times possess only two real social units, the family and the Indian village community. No real tribal organizations exist, and only among the Cora and Yaqui are there strong feelings of tribal solidarity. For all these peoples the community is the society, and there is little movement in or out—or even interaction with other communities of the same “tribe.”

The traditional Indian community is largely the result of colonial missionary efforts to concentrate the scattered rancherias, or hamlets, of aboriginal times into Spanish-type villages in which the natives could be more easily administrated. Usually furnished with land grants, these communities survived the close of the mission period and remained viable social units. The modern Indian community is built around a political and religious structure having its origin in the village organization set up by early missionaries to carry out church fiestas. It consists of a series of cargos, or civil and religious offices, in which most males of the village participate, the higher offices being achieved with age and experience. Some version of this structure or copy of it is or was present among all these groups. Today, among most groups it is still the backbone of the community, serving to produce the village fiestas as well as settle disputes among the people. While serious crimes or major issues are now handled by the Mexican government, in most situations the Indian gobernador (governor) and elders are consulted as well.

Kinship patterns

The family is of one type for all the agricultural peoples. Kinship is based largely on descent from both parents, though with some orientation toward the authority of the father. The judgment of the elder males is highly respected, and in most groups the advice and permission of family elders is sought on all important occasions—to produce a ceremony, sell a cow, contract a marriage. Everywhere, however, the role of women is more nearly equal to that of men than is the case among the heavily male-dominated rural mestizo families. Needless to say, there is little of the famous Mexican machismo (cult of the male) among the aboriginal peoples of northern Mexico. The normal system of Spanish Christian and family names is present in all these groups.

Marriage is primarily monogamous, though some informal polygyny occurs. Polygyny is most common among the Huichol (constituting about 5 percent of the marriages), which suggests that it was more common in northern Mexico in aboriginal times. Marriage tends to be brittle, and many unions are not permanent. Parents commonly arrange a match, though the custom is not uniform over the area. Among the Cora and Huichol, the boy’s parents must make a series of ritual requests before the match is accepted. In most cases there is little or no ceremony; a few seek church marriages and have wedding fiestas. Among the Cora, the young couple are given formal advice by family elders in the manner of ancient Mexico.

There is a strong tendency for marriages to take place within the community. In most areas intermarriage with the mestizo population is not approved but occurs to a small degree. Among the Mayo and Tepehuán, however, there has been so much outside marriage that the ethnic status of many individuals is uncertain. In most of northern Mexico the offspring of mixed marriages pass easily into mestizo society and tend to ignore their Indian origin.

The Seri have an elaborate system of gift exchange for marriage in which the groom is expected to furnish the family of the bride with certain valuable gifts, such as a rifle, fishing canoe, or, more recently, a pickup truck. His services to the bride’s family may continue for several years.

The institution of compadrazgo, or coparenthood—that complex of ritual relationships between parents, godparents, and child set up at the baptism of a child—has been deeply integrated into the traditional cultures. Indeed, a copy of it occurs among such non-Christians as the pagan Tarahumara and Huichol. Many minor variations of compadrazgo occur among the Indians. It serves everywhere to extend the kinship structure and provide “spiritual” kin on which one can call in times of need. Some Indians may choose mestizos to serve at the baptism of their child; others, such as the Cora, do not favour this.

None of the Indian peoples of northern Mexico shows even minimal evidence of social stratification. Egalitarian societies exist everywhere, and historical accounts suggest that this has always been the case. Only among certain extinct coastal peoples of southern Sinaloa and Nayarit is there found some mention of stratification on the Mesoamerican pattern. Prestigeaccrues to wealth and ceremonial knowledge, but this seldom passes to the children.

Socialization and education

Socialization and native education follow traditional patterns. A child is given little formal training, but is often admonished by his elders as to proper behaviour. Training in household tasks for the girls and men’s work for the boys is through observation and gradually increasing participation until the techniques of maintaining oneself and family are mastered. Both boys and girls are expected to contribute their work as soon as possible. At an early age, children haul water, gather wood, or herd sheep. Small Seri boys spear crabs with miniature turtle harpoons as training for their adult pursuit of the sea turtle. Among the farming peoples all ages take part in the work during critical periods, such as periods of weeding and harvesting.

Rites of passage survive for children among several of the least Hispanicized groups. Cora, Huichol, and Tepehuán have rites in which a newborn is introduced to the gods. The Cora have a ceremony in which children are symbolically introduced to the use of alcoholic drinks.

Today, all Mexican Indian groups have access to schools, usually federal rural schools, and most attend to some degree, though the remote areas in which most Indians live and their lack of interest in education designed for the mestizo world does not make for the most effective program. In some areas native Indians have been trained as teachers with somewhat better results. The Kickapoo have steadfastly refused schools, seeing in them a strong threat to their cherished way of life.

Economic systems

Settlement patterns and housing

The aboriginal settlement pattern of the agricultural Indians centred on the rancheria, which consisted of a number of household units clustered in spots convenient to cultivation sites or water. When colonial missionaries incorporated these into larger villages, the lowland peoples, such as the Yaqui, Mayo, and Opata, accepted this arrangement. They continue to live in concentrated settlements today. In the Sierra Madre, subsistence patterns did not lend themselves to such towns, and the Indians returned to their rancherias when the missionaries withdrew.

As a result, all contemporary Indians of the mountain regions live in scattered ranch clusters using the village itself as a religious and political centre. Most Indian villages have a church (often the original mission structure), a school, government buildings used for courts or meetinghouses, and small mestizo-operated stores as well as a few houses owned by Indians who spend most of the year at their ranches. In many areas the once exclusively Indian village has acquired a non-Indian population that resides there permanently. Communities of the Tarahumara, Pima, Tepehuán, Cora, and Huichol follow this pattern. Yaqui and Mayo settlements are more like towns. Many Mayo settlements are now on the outskirts of Mexican towns.

The originally nomadic Hokan peoples now tend to live in small permanent settlements. The Seri have coalesced into two fairly permanent settlements, though they still move about to fish, hunt sea turtles, or sell their crafts.

Housing utilizes the available local material, be it stone, adobe, wattle and mud, planks, bamboo, or even caves, which are occupied seasonally by some of the Tarahumara and Pima. Dwellings primarily consist of one room with a dirt floor and no chimney. The kitchen tends to be an auxiliary structure as does the corn crib. Many Indians sleep on the floor on mats and blankets, but crude bamboo or rawhide beds are also used. Furniture is seldom more than a stool or two, although a few may possess tables. In most areas Indian housing is more primitive than that of other poor rural people. Water, lights, and sanitary facilities are nonexistent.

Patterns of production

All the Uto-Aztecan peoples of northern Mexico are subsistence agriculturalists raising maize, beans, squash, a few other plants, and some livestock. Maize remains the basis of life and everywhere is a sacred substance, considered, for instance, as a deity by the Cora and Huichol. Cultivation methods range from the primitive digging stick used in slash-and-burn plots on hillsides and ox-plow agriculture in level fields, to some mechanized agriculture among the Yaqui. Characteristically, farm technology is primitive and of low yield. Few of the Indians have any considerable amount of good productive land, and there is competition with mestizos for even the poor mountainside plots of the Sierra Madre Occidental. The corn supply seldom lasts out the year, and in many areas it is significantly supplemented by gathering wild plants, cactus fruits, wild greens, maguey, and the usually abundant seedpods of mesquite, guamuchil, and other treelike legumes. The cash needed for outside items comes from the occasional sale of a young bull or from sporadic wage work in which many Indians engage. Deer and other game once abundant both in the sierra and in the desert are now rare. All the Uto-Aztecan tribes still hunt, but scarcity of game makes hunting relatively unimportant. The rivers yield a few fish and crayfish, which are much esteemed. Among the Seri, hunting of deer and sea turtles as well as fishing is still common but, even so, is of decreasing importance.

For centuries individuals from all these groups have worked for wages first in Spanish and then in Mexican mines and fields. The great silver mines at Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua, in colonial times made use of Tarahumara, Pima, Opata, and Yaqui labour. Yaqui and Mayo have long laboured on ranches and railroads and in mines away from their own country, even in the United States. Today, wage work is a factor in every Indian community in northern Mexico with some members of every group working for wages in the new agricultural areas of the Mexican west coast. The typical pattern is for young men or whole families to go to the coast for a few weeks to pick cotton or harvest corn or tobacco, returning to their own homesteads to plant and care for their maize. Some Tarahumara and Tepehuán work in lumber camps. No matter how important wages are as supplementary income, these peoples all prefer their own agriculture in their own communities, and few are drawn away permanently. It is rare indeed for sierra Indians to live and work in cities. This is not as true for the Yaqui, who have permanent settlements in several large Sonora towns.

About 1930 the Seri adopted commercial fishing and developed a mixed economy that included traditional hunting and gathering. Since 1965, however, a new industry has grown up in which the Indians have learned to carve animal figurines from the dense wood of the palo fierro, a desert tree. A large number of Seri families turned to production of the figurines for sale to tourists and appeared to be abandoning gathering and fishing as primary means of livelihood.

Property and personal customs

The Indian market system of central Mexico does not exist in northern Mexico. All Indian areas are served by small rural stores almost entirely owned by non-Indians. Here the few but important necessities such as cloth, metal tools, soap, salt, tin cups, and matches are purchased. Money, in use everywhere, is completely a part of modern Indian culture.

Clothing combines the older styles of rural Mexico with modern lower class dress. Only the Tarahumara, some communities of whom still wear a type of loincloth, and the Huichol, with a colourful embroidered costume, have retained forms that stand out as distinct. Some, like the Cora and Tepehuán men, favour the pajama-like muslin garments of two generations ago and today consider them Indian dress. All others wear modern clothing with few reminders of earlier attire. Huaraches (sandals) are generally worn, as are homemade or commercial hats, usually made of palm; people near the United States border, however, prefer modern shoes and cowboy hats. Women’s dress throughout tends toward a skirt and blouse with a rebozo, or head scarf.

Long hair is worn by males in some Tarahumara and Huichol communities and by many adult Seri. Elsewhere, short hair is the custom. Women wear the hair loose or, among the more Mexicanized, in braids.

Food is largely vegetable and consists of local varieties of the rural Mexican staples—tortillas, tamales, beans, and cheese. Indians, however, make much use of atole (corn mush) and pinole (ground parched corn) both of which were aboriginal favourites and are not as popular with the mestizos.

Crafts, nearly everywhere disappearing, are very largely limited to household necessities and are seldom made primarily for sale. Wool blankets are produced by the Mayo, Tarahumara, and Cora and woven shoulder bags by the Cora and Huichol. Utilitarian pottery and twilled containers and mats are still made in most groups, using native Indian techniques. The only objects produced for the tourist market are copies and elaborations of colourful ceremonial material by some Huichol and the figurines and shell beads produced by the Seri.

Other technology differs but little from that of other rural Mexicans of the northwest. Ranch tools and the paraphernalia used in handling livestock are identical. None of the sierra Indians possess automobiles. Some individuals in the other groups, including the Kickapoo, have acquired motor vehicles.

Religion

The northern Mexican tribes, like all Mexican Indians, have had contact with Christian missionaries for centuries, and all the agricultural Indians of northern Mexico are nominal Roman Catholics except for a few communities of pagan Tarahumaras, called “gentiles,” and the majority of the Huichol. Even pagan groups, however, have incorporated Christian ideas and ritual practices. It can be generally stated that all the Uto-Aztecan speakers of northern Mexico today practice some form of Roman Catholicism blended with native religion. The extent of aboriginal retentions varies from group to group, with the Huichol approximating pre-Columbian patterns to the greatest degree, keeping their gods, pilgrimages to sacred places, and native religious concepts almost intact. Others like the Cora have fused these, retaining native gods but equating them with Christian personages. The Yaqui and Mayo, both with a strong religious orientation to their culture, have an even more homogenous mixture. It is doubtful, though, whether any of the groups have absorbed Christian philosophy or belief systems to any great degree. Religion retains its aboriginal functions of protecting one’s health, bringing the rains, and insuring the abundance of agriculture, rather than as a means to a glorious afterlife.

The relationship of many of these peoples to the modern Roman Catholic Church is tenuous. Modern priests tend to discourage folk observances such as the fiestas; the Indians, by and large, produce them without help of a priest. In the southern Sierra Madre, among the Cora, Huichol, and Tepehuán, there are modern Franciscan missionaries, while in the Tarahumara area there are Jesuits. Among all the Uto-Aztecans, religion remains central to the traditional culture, and it is an area in which there is great resistance to outside pressure for change.

Protestants have been active among the Seri and Yumans, achieving their greatest success with the Seri, who in the 1950s were all converted by an evangelical sect and largely abandoned their non-Christian practices. The Kickapoo, though also contacted by Protestants, remain, for the most part, followers of their aboriginal religion.

The shaman, or medicine man, still exists in most of these groups. Called a curandero in Spanish, he uses supernatural means to cure illnesses, to insure the success of crops, or to assist in other situations requiring divine aid. He is very distinct from the mestizo curandero, who utilizes European folk medicine. Huichol medicine men, or marakame, are especially famous among the tribes of the Sierra Madre for their knowledge and power. Belief in witchcraft still exists among all these peoples. A shaman himself may be accused of being a witch.

Modern developments

The traditional Indian cultures of northern Mexico that emerged from the Spanish colonial world remained remarkably stable throughout the 19th century. Combinations of isolation, poverty, and conservatism resulted in what were essentially static societies. There were sporadically some uprisings, but it was not until the Mexican Revolution of 1911 and after that most Indian cultures were significantly affected by changes taking place elsewhere in Mexico. All these peoples took part in the revolutionary conflicts, and some disorganization took place everywhere. Thousands of individual Indians followed the armies, many never to return. The aftermath of the revolution marked the beginning of governmental concern with the Indians. The Instituto Nacional Indigenista was established and took upon itself the task of raising living standards and gradually integrating the Indians into the national life. Some groups benefitted significantly by the revolution and its results. Many Yaqui and Mayo escaped from hacienda peonage, and the Yaqui had a large portion of their ancestral lands restored to them.

It has been only since World War II that real changes have been taking place in the cultures themselves. There are multiple reasons for increased pressures from the outside world, but the primary cause is simply the development of modern transportation and a corresponding loss of centuries-long isolation. A major factor has been the construction of dams in the rivers flowing out of the Sierra Madre and the development of major irrigation projects and large modern cities on the coastal plain. There is now greater interest in the resources of the mountain hinterlands on the part of non-Indians, and there are opportunities for the mountain and desert peoples to engage in migrant farm labour.

Opening of the Mexican west coast highway brought major changes in the whole area. The desert lands of the Papago, the Sonoran seacoast of the Seri, and the thorn forests of the Yaqui and Mayo were penetrated by paved roads. A railroad across the Sierra Madre from the city of Chihuahua to Los Mochis on the Pacific bisects the Tarahumara country, and roads have made numerous villages of this tribe accessible to truck traffic. Truck roads are approaching even the gorges of the Cora and the Huichol. Many parts of the Sierra Madre previously accessible only by animals or by foot are served by local airlines that fly small planes hauling freight and passengers to most of the mountain communities. It is a common sight at the airport in Tepic, Nayarit, to see rural mestizos, Cora, and Huichol Indians waiting to board a plane for airstrips near their remote homes. Although there are still vast areas in these mountain regions not reached by modern transportation, the outside world has become more accessible, and all of these peoples have been affected to some extent.

Development of modern transportation has greatly increased the possibility that many Indian communities in time will cease to exist. There is growing competition for lands in all areas as non-Indian cattlemen, lumbermen, and farmers exploit these regions more intensely. Almost everywhere Indians find themselves being pushed or crowded out of ancestral lands by more sophisticated forces who have use for their resources. The Instituto Nacional Indigenista has come to the aid of some, such as the Tarahumara and Huichol, and given them legal assistance in securing land titles. In most areas, though, Indians, having no legal knowledge and lacking sophisticated leadership, are severely handicapped in dealing with these problems. Without a land base it is doubtful that communally oriented societies such as these can long survive.

The basic strength of the Indian groups in the late 20th century is found in their village organization and associated ceremonial structures that effectively preserve ethnic boundaries. Those retaining the strongest organized communities—the Tarahumara, Yaqui, Cora, and Huichol—while threatened, appear to be in no immediate danger of cultural disintegration. Others, few in number (such as the Pima) or lacking well preserved independent village structures (such as the Mayo), appear less likely to survive the impact of modernization.

Fear of alienation of lands and ultimate loss of ethnic identity has led to avoidance of innovations in many cases. Most still continue to resist social and religious change and avoid too close contact with non-Indians. There is, it is true, less reluctance to adopt material objects. The spread of modern communications media, even to the depths of the Sierra Madre, has resulted, among other things, in the increased learning of Spanish. The cast-iron corn mill is now used to grind masa (tortilla dough), saving hours of kneeling at a metate, or millstone, grinding by hand. Pedal sewing machines and metal containers are common. Nevertheless, most northern Mexican Indians express concern that their lifeways are dying. They fear that loss of community lands and the cultural seduction of their youth will mean that their days as separate peoples are indeed numbered.